Asri-unix.217 net.chess utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!mclure Mon Dec 14 06:16:44 1981 Elite vs. MCT match summary In the Fidelity Elite vs. Applied Concepts Master Chess Trio match, the Elite won 5 out of 5. Some comments about the games are included here. In game 1, MCT managed to gain a decisive advantage of bishop and knight vs. rook going into the endgame, but through careless play allowed allowed the exchange of all but one of its pawns. This left Elite with a couple more pawns, all connected, which proved crushing. Elite's only blunder was 20. Bf7, exchanging its bishop and knight for a rook and pawn, a common computer error for programs which consider bishop and knight equal to 6 pawns and rook and pawn equal to 6 pawns. However, Elite played very surprisingly 63 Rd2, sacrificing the exchange in the endgame in order to eliminate any of MCT's remote counterplay which would have lengthened the game by a few moves. Apparently the programmers have told Elite how to recognize in king and pawn endgames the technique of whether the enemy king is within the square of the pawn which is to queen. Elite noticed this and gave up the last pieces on the board to shorten the game. In game 2, Elite inflicted doubled pawns on MCT's c file with 7. ... Bc3, gained control of the d file with 10. ... Rd8, and proceeded to put inexorable pressure on the weak pawns. MCT entered the endgame in an unfavorable position and a pawn or two down. Elite quickly forced the win by promoting a pawn and forcing MCT to sacrifice its rook for the queen. In game 3, we see the first crush of the match. A 33 mover in which MCT left the opening with a better position, but quickly deteriorated (under the inferior play of the Morphy module). Elite then plays a risky maneuver with 17. Bh6, a position in which the bishop can often be trapped. However, MCT then trades its remaining minor piece for three of Elite's pawns, two of them in front of the Elite castled position. In some circumstances, this can be favorable, but more force must be available to take advantage of the open king position. MCT had no such force. Its rooks were out of play. So in effect, Elite was playing a piece up, unless MCT could trap Elite's wayward bishop. Unfortunately for MCT, it couldn't. Elite's rooks were just too strong, and MCT's rooks never did get into play so Elite was then playing with two rooks, bishop, and queen against MCT's sole queen. The outcome was a quick mate. In game 4, Elite again came out of the opening with an inferior position. By move 18, MCT had a very superior position, but in a long combination it failed to see as far as Elite and lost a piece because on the last ply, the equivalent enemy piece could not be recaptured because of a double attack by Elite's queen against MCT's rook and king which could not defend each other. This combination started with Elite's 18. ... Nf3. Elite easily won the enusing endgame. Amusingly, it shortened the win again as in game 1 by sacrificing material in order to get a pawn outside of the square of the Enemy king, even though it was a full piece ahead. This produces a very nice "human" effect for the Elite endgame in these two games. Perhaps even more amusing is that Elite promoted a second pawn, this one to a knight instead of a queen in order to shorten the mate still further. In game 5, the final game, both machines made very strange moves at 6. Nc6 dc. 6. Nc6 is not good in the Sicilian because it strengthens Black's center. However, this is a very common computer error. I believe chess 4.x made it against Levy in their historic match in Toronto for the bet. I think Levy was counting on the precise error. Inexplicably, MCT recaptured with the e pawn, allowing the exchange of queens and preventing itself from castling! This looks like a much more serious bug than what allowed Elite to play 6. Nc6. The resulting pressure on the d file after Elite's queenside castle was simply too great and MCT lost a bishop. Another serious program bug occurred when MCT exchanged with 15. ... Bc3 and gave up its only developed piece. The Elite will not trade when down material unless it produces a forced draw by lack of sufficient mating material, perpetual check, gain of material, etc. The Capablanca cartridge doesn't seem robust in this respect. Also, Capablanca refused to develop its rooks after the exchange and lost still more material. Elite obtained a crushing positional advantage with doubled rooks on the 7th rank and ended the game quickly thereafter. Summary: MCT has many serious bugs in the Morphy and Capablanca modules. Morphy seems especially weak. In practically every game, MCT left the opening with a superior position, but quickly degraded its advantage through the inferior play of the Morphy module. So in this respect, the Gruenfeld opening play appears slightly superior to the Elite opening book. I don't think this is too surprising since I believe the Gruenfeld book is larger than the Elite's. Elite demonstrated an admirable ability to wrest the initiative from MCT and apply continuous pressure until MCT crumbled. A sixth game was also played, but not recorded. Elite won from the black side of a Sicilian, after again having a cramped opening against MCT's white. It is unclear why the MCT has such a high reputation. It is almost universally touted as the strongest mass commerical chess device (the Elite is a limited production model), but I now find this reputation very hard to believe. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.